NEWS FOR TRAVELERS. Culture stops.

`Mysteries Of Egypt' Are On Display

June 20, 1999|By Michael Kilian, Tribune Staff Writer.

A huge, visitor-friendly (if kinda eerie) multi-media exhibition on the "Mysteries of Egypt," including a giant Omnimax movie on the subject and 300 ordinary and quite extraordinary objects from that earliest of civilizations, opened last week at the Cincinnati Museum Center, a complex that's rather extraordinary itself.

On view through Oct. 15, this extravagant show examines every aspect of ancient Egyptian society -- exploring the lives of peasants and the Egyptian working classes as well as the more glittering existence of the pharaohs and the royal court. The priests had it pretty good, too.

There is dominating focus on Egyptian funereal art -- death having been a way of life in that culture -- which ran to pyramids taking 100,000 men 20 years to build as well as a remarkable process of embalming.

Citing the expertise of the Greek historian Herodotus on the subject, the exhibit describes a portion of the process thus: "As much of the brain as is possible is extracted through the nostrils with an iron hook, and what the hook cannot reach is dissolved with drugs. Next, the flank is slit open . . ."

There are no actual demonstrations of this in the movie -- thank heavens; the screen is five stories high -- but there are other thrills, among them a flight along the Nile and through the Valley of the Kings. Omar Sharif stars, with Kate Maberly as his fictional granddaughter.

Created from the city's historic old Union Terminal in 1990, the Cincinnati Museum Center (1301 Western Ave.; 513-287-7000) houses the Cincinnati History Museum, the Museum of Natural History and Science, the Lindner Family Omnimax Theater and the Cinergy Children's Museum.

Canadian art

When in Canada, see Canadian art. Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario (317 Dundas St. W.; 416-977-0414) has just opened "A Collector's Vision: J. S. McLean and Modern Painting in Canada," a show that is demonstrably not simply Inuit artifacts and Canadian Rockies landscapes.

Motivated by patriotism, industrialist J.S. McLean began collecting contemporary Canadian art in 1930, hanging it throughout his house and his corporate premises. You may not have heard of Toronto artists A.Y. Jackson, David Milne and Paraskeva Clark, but after seeing this show you may spread their fame. It closes Sept. 6.